A segmentation method applied to the spine is already known of the publication “Digital Radiography Segmentation of Scoliotic Vertebral Body using Deformable Models” by Claude Kauffmann and Jacques A. de Guise in SPIE Vol. 3034, pp. 243-251. This publication describes a computer segmentation method based on the active contour model (g-snake) and using a prior knowledge. This method is adapted and used to detect automatically the contour lines of each vertebral body independently in digital radiographs of the scoliotic spine. These contour lines are used to identify correspondent anatomical landmarks for the 3D reconstruction of the scoliotic spine using a bi-planar technique. The steps comprise: constructing a standard template for each kind of vertebrae (thoracic or lumbar), performing three best fits of the appropriate template on the spine radiograph, g-snake energy minimization, selection of a best contour for each vertebra individually, and anatomical landmark extraction (including corners and spine center-line points). Previous steps of digitization of the spine centerline and acquisition of a prior knowledge including the height and width of the standard template are first performed.